PS21 Report: Countering Violent Extremism

Countering Violent Extremism programs are ballooning. Many do not

work.

Rationale behind them often oversimplistic, discriminatory.

Can produce heightened sense of grievance in Muslim communities.

West still fishing for counterterrorism strategy 14 years after 9/11.

With ISIS, Al Qaeda, primary problems in the Middle East. But focus largely
on domestic risk.

Much greater effort should be devoted to wider social issues.

Different narratives, messenger is needed for different target audiences.

CVE programs often ignore wider politics, genuine frustration at Western

policies.

Individuals join groups for much more personal reasons, however.

Little solid data. Very low number of terror attacks makes analysis hard.
On Friday, May 29, 2015, the Project for Study of the 21st Century (PS21) held its first
event in New York in conjunction with New York Universitys Just Security blog.
A full transcript can be found here and video here.

The panelists were as follows:

Ryan Goodman (Moderator): NYU professor of law and co-editor, Just Security
Richard Barrett: Former British diplomat and intelligence officer who headed the
United Nations monitoring team covering Al Qaeda and the Taliban for nearly a decade.
Now Vice President at the Soufan Group and an International Advisor at PS21.
Faiza Patel: Founding editor of Just Security, co-director of the Liberty and National
Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU.
Please feel free to quote from this report referencing both PS21 and NYU/Just
Security. If you wish to get in touch with any of the panellists, please e-mail
ps21central@gmail.com
Ever since 9/11, there has been a tendency to try and find clear-cut programs to
identify the emergence of militant/terrorist tendencies. They have almost invariably
been over-simplistic.
Patel: Theres such an urge to do something about the problem that we are using models
that are simply not based on empirical science and still using them to build programs
which have very real impacts on communities.
Barrett: Measuring effectiveness is a real, real problem. Because the instance of
terrorism is so small, you cant really relate that back to any of the actions you have
taken.
If you look at violent extremism and you look at the cases that we know of and plot
you get a collection of individual stories. From those individual stories, of course, you
can make generalisations. The danger with that is they cover a huge population, far
greater than those who have gone off to join the Islamic State.
The most serious issues and consequences around groups such as Islamic State are
in the Middle East. But there is a tendency to view the problem primarily through
the prism of homeland terror attack risk.

Barrett: Clearly, the main policy response has to lie with the region (But) people are
worried not because they worry about Iraq and Syria or the future of the Middle East or
North Africa which are the areas most affected but because they are worried about
what might happen at some convention they go to in Texas. They worry about what might
happen when they go to the local Wal-Mart store.
In total, some 5-6000 Europeans and North Americans appear to have travelled to
join militant groups. More research is needed on why as well as why they in
many cases choose to return.
Of that number, however, many probably represent little or no risk on their return.
Barrett: The great majority of people who go I dont think are much of a threat. But
there is a real concern and this is the nature of terrorism, of course. To make the public
concerned, thats the whole point.
Almost 15 years after 9/11, the West is still struggling in its approach to terrorism.
Barrett: The development of counterterrorism over the years Ive been involved has
been remarkable. Immediately after 9/11 the idea was that you could essentially eradicate
terrorism by killing everybody. And of course that became ridiculous pretty quickly.
Almost 14 years after 9/11, were still fishing around in the dark to find an understanding
of terrorism, let alone effective countermeasures. But there has been a remarkable change
in attitude. Its not just about a military response. It is also about understanding why
people from our societies would want to be terrorists. And law enforcement definitely has
a role.
Traditional CVE programs such as those of the FBI and NYPD have been based on
the concept that studying previous militants can show a path, allowing detection and
intervention in future cases. Initially, this focused on signs of increased religiousness
such as growing a beard and stopping smoking. More recent emphasis has been on
psychological factors, looking for those alienated from society who might be seeking
a new purpose.

The problem with both approaches is that they capture a vast number of young
people, most of whom will not become militants. At worst, it can alienate them and
to speed up the process.
Patel: I am a CVE sceptic. Thats how I define myself in this debate. I dont see the
kinds of things that have been put forward as predictors of radicalisation or violence or
extremism as particularly useful. I look at my own kids who are 15 and 17 and I can
assure you that if I went through the indicators of radicalisation put forward by Lisa
Monaco from the White House about a year ago, my kids would probably meet about five
of them.
The focus on counterterrorism misses the point that many of these problems are
much more broadly societal.
Government can actually do harm by attempting to force its own counter
narrative. In some cases, association with government-backed CVE programs has
undermined previously effective local community projects such as those aimed at
building local leadership.
Patel: You put that CVE tag on them and you are already turning off a large portion of
your audience. Whatever you do in this space, your first principle I think must be to do no
harm. What I see when the government intervenes in counter narrative, particularly on the
domestic side, is a lot of harm.
Barrett: Those kind of objectives are important and can fall very broadly into a
framework of a general social policy. But people like to feel they are engaged in
countering terrorism. Its a bit more attractive than saying: Im engaged in social work.
I would say that social work is probably more valuable.
Lower sentences for support for terrorism can, perversely, lead to higher detection
rates because communities will co-operate more. Frequent raids, meanwhile, can
stifle discussion within communities and raise discontent.
Modern Muslim groups are often criticised for failing to fight the Islamist
narrative. This, again, is over-simplistic.

Patel: There is this false idea that moderate Muslim groups are going to be able to put
forward messages that are going to be appealing to the people who are going to join ISIS.
I think we really need to get away from that. It puts this kind of blame and responsibility
on people where it really does not belong.
The most effective counter narratives are those that arent even meant to be counter
narratives. These are things that are organic that come from the community and are really
peoples individual responses to what they see as the distortion of their religion.
All too often, the CVE debate completely ignores the broader politics.
Patel: When we talk about countering violent extremism, we never talk about politics
and whats going on in the world. We assume this is some kind of poisonous ideology
that we need to inoculate kids against.
Now you may not agree with their geopolitical view but if you dont even acknowledge
that there are factors other than ideology, other than mental health that are going on in
this recruitment process, youre not getting at the problem at all.
It is the general sense of this tension between the West and Islam but there are specific
things which really capture peoples imagination. In particular, for example, the use of
drones.
The narratives of the major militant groups are tightly focused on the Middle East.
Al Qaeda and ISIS have different but overlapping approaches, particularly
ideologically. Both are particularly critical of the West for supporting what they see
as corrupt, illegitimate local dictatorships.
Barrett: One of the key differences is that Al Qaeda believes that the local (Middle
Eastern) regimes are the secondary target and the first target is their supporters, the West,
who really prop them up. Islamic State says: no, we want to attack the local regimes and
that is our primary target.
What drives individuals to militant groups, however, can often be more personal.

Counter narratives will never be effective against the most hard-core militant
supporters. They may be more effective against those who are simply sympathetic.
Barrett: This group is much more important. They are interested in things being put out
by extremist groups and think maybe they make a bit of sense. They need access to other
people who can give them the other side of the story.
Stories from similar people can be more effective than more moderate religious
voices.
Barrett: There is a lot of attention on Imams talking about the true meaning of Islam.
There isnt a true meaning. You have the Koran, you have the Hadith and there is an
interpretation of what they mean. You can be a literalist like the Islamic State or you can
take a broader view.
My sense is that people are tempted to a radical violent extremist group because they
want to belong to something; they want to have a stronger sense of identity.
A former militant could say: Okay, I was exactly the same. I was exactly like you. I
came from a very similar demographic and tried this. It didnt work out. Now what I am
doing is this. You provide them with alternatives.
It is also important to reach out to neutrals, members of the community who
would not themselves be tempted to become militants.
Barrett: If we are to manage and spot people who are going to join violent extremist
groups, it is only their friends, relatives or family who can do that. Its not going to be the
local policemen. So these people have to be aware of the signs.
Then there are the people who are inclined to think terrorism is a bad thing. They are a
useful audience to go to and say: This is what you could do. There are also those who
are already doing something about it, they need to be given more ammunition and more
support and more help.

You have these different audiences and for each of them you need a different message.
You need a different messenger, whether or not it is a former, and you may need a
different medium.
Law-enforcement agencies are not used to some of the problems of counterterrorism
not least that most police officers have never met and never will meet a terrorist.
It is also important to acknowledge the pull factor of groups like Islamic State.
Part of combating that is finding other outlets for frustrated young people.
Barrett: They prey on these feelings and say: You can come here, you can help build
something, you can be part of something.
Now for the vast majority of people, 99.99%, that isnt enough. But for some it is. And it
is unfortunate that the people who get up and go are people who could do something
rather more worthwhile.
Policymakers should be looking not just at how to prevent people becoming radicalised
but alternative outlets for people who have the energy and determination that takes them
out of their family and into the unknown.
Broader social initiatives are almost certainly a good idea. Some others with a
narrower counter extremism focus may not be.
Patel: Its important to look at different kinds of initiatives.
One set of initiatives are those which would be good for any community: building a
community centre, building a highway that connects the suburbs of Paris more effectively
or increasing digital literacy amongst populations. All these things are in the social
services category and I think that if you took them out of the securitised space of
counterterrorism they could be helpful. They are helpful on their own.
There is a second set of programs that are most problematic and those are the ones weve
seen emerging in the United States, imported from Great Britain. I think these are a really
bad idea.

These are programs that say: We are going to identify vulnerable Muslims and then we
are going to conduct interventions. I have two fundamental problems with that.
Firstly, how are you going to identify vulnerable? This is very, very risky and an openended proposition, particularly when you are looking at minority populations who are not
understood by, much less by public school teachers in Minnesota.
If Im a schoolteacher and Im worried that some Somali kid in my class is alienated or
seems troubled, what am I going to do? Am I going to report him or her to the principal?
Am I going to go to a police officer who has been designated as my CVE liaison and put
this kid on a list for no good reason?
It may be worth narrowing the focus of some programs for example, to focus
solely on the risk of very small numbers going overseas to fight.
Patel: We have this risk and its very small, particularly in the United States. Youre
looking at roughly around according to law enforcement estimates 100-130 people
who have left.
So I can imagine something that says: let us educate parents about the kind of propaganda
put forward and then they can think about the best ways to engage with their kids on that.
Gender roles are important when it comes to women joining ISIS in particular.
Barrett: A woman joining the Islamic State is much more likely to see her role as a wife
and a mother rather than a fighter in the front line. There are many women who slightly
fret that they are not being allowed to fight, particularly after they have been there some
time. But the idea of going, particularly if you are relatively young, is often the idea of
going to marry this heroic guy and become part of a sisterhood.
She thinks: Im going to belong to this really strong sisterhood. Im not going to be
discriminated against. Im not going to be teased for wearing my hijab. Im really going
to be somebody who is going to contribute and Im going to build the future of the state
through my children and so on. Its a mixture of idealism and romanticism.

Most of them are in fact coming from the West because in Arab societies and many
other Muslim societies a woman getting up and leaving to a foreign country on her
own or with her sister is much more difficult.
All too often, such actions as well as the broader CVE narrative simply fuel
the sense of alienation in Muslim communities.
Patel: Asking some of these questions would simply be unacceptable with any group
except Muslims.
Community leaders say: in my mosque I dont want to talk about foreign policy because
if I talk about it the FBI is going to be at my door. Parents dont want to talk to their
children about these issues because they are afraid to do so. This is actually a real
dynamic that you see in the community which is really detrimental to allowing the
organic community institutions to push back against the ISIS narrative.
Report by Peter Apps. Transcript by Gabrielle Redelinghuys and Elyse Warren.